Medieval Comics Team-Up: The Values of Comics for Medieval Studies
Session proposed for The Medieval Academy at 100: The 2025 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America (Harvard University, Cambridge MA, from 20-22 March 2025)
Sponsored by Medieval Comics Project, an outreach effort of the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture
Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa
Paper Proposals due 1 June 2024
As any post-medieval adaptation of elements from the Middle Ages, the term medievalism encompasses a wide array of media, including comics. Searches on resources such as the Grand Comics Database reveal an astounding number of comics based on or inspired by aspects of the medieval past. It is a rich corpus produced, for over a century, by creators across the world, and one might expect a comparably robust tradition of medieval-comics scholarship. However, although medieval comics outnumber many other popular forms of medievalisms, they have received relatively little critical attention. Part of this may be lingering stigmas held against the medium, but it's more likely today that most medievalists just don’t know how to find and access comics. We hope to change that.
This session is sponsored by the Medieval Comics Project, which was founded in 2003 as an outreach effort of the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, and we seek to offer some resources and practices for how to make (better) use of medieval-themed comics in our teaching and research.
We define comics to include cartoons, comic books, comic strips, graphic albums/bandes dessinées, graphic novels, manga, and webcomics, as well as adaptations of these into related media (like anime, collectibles, fiction, films, games, radio, and television).
Proposals might address any of the following topics:
- Activities creating comics inspired by and/or reacting to the medieval.
- Comic-like narratives from the Middle Ages.
- Comics that adapt aspects of the medieval (such as historical events or literary texts).
- Creation or sharing of resources to further scholarship on medieval-themed comics.
- Medieval motifs adapted and/or appropriated in modern comics.
- Pairings of the medieval with modern comics.
If you are interested in joining this session, please send to Comics.Get.Medieval@gmail.com a paper title, a paper abstract of about 250 words, and a short biographical statement (50-100 words) addressing your qualifications as a medievalist and/or comics scholar.
Per the requirements of the organizers, presenters must be or become members of the Medieval Academy of America in order to present at the conference. However, exceptions may be given to individuals whose specialty would not normally involve membership in the Medieval Academy. Please contact MAA Executive Director Lisa Fagin Davis (lfd@themedievalacademy.org) with any questions about this policy. Details on membership classes and rates can be found at https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/Member_Rates.
Please note that the Medieval Academy will offer some opportunities for funding to attend the conference. Details can be found on the meeting site at https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/2025AnnualMeeting.
